The Woods
by Auchen
Summary: (Fairy tale werewolf AU.) The problem was that the girl had always had a wild heart.
1. Chapter 1

Don't wander into the woods, the old tales say. They are dark and deep, and the branches will scratch at your ankles and tear you apart. Do not wander into the wilds where you will feel the wind through your hair. Stay in the village with its latched fences and doors with peeling paint. Stay where you will grow old with seven children, daily kneading dough with fingers calloused by years of work.

Do not go out into the mountains whose ragged snowcapped peaks are the home to dragons who lay on gleaming hoards of treasure.

The problem was that the girl had always had a wild heart. The stories that her elders whispered to her with cracked lips never scared her. If anything, they made her want to explore all the more.

As a child, she would wander beyond the safe fences of her village and bring home insects cupped between her hands. In the chill of autumn, she would look up through the crisscrossing tree branches, wondering at what lay in the blackness.

The people around her always quietly tutted, saying things like, "A problem child, that one. Hope that she grows out of it."

But the problem with a wild heart is that they never go away. They only become more yearning and ponderous with age. When she became a woman, she still went into the woods, gazing at the unending lines of trees and the stars with eyes of one who has wisdom.

There was even more to be understood than when she was a child. But the village always inevitably called her back, and she left her heart in the woods.

—

The wolf watched the girl from the edge of the forest. Oh, he didn't look like a wolf then, he looked like a handsome man with a sharp smile and black tumbling hair, but the wolf was in him, just beneath his green smiling eyes.

He had seen the girl before, tramping through his woods. He had smelled her scent, half-domesticated, half-wild, like a barn cat that drinks milk from a saucer but refuses to be petted.

That intrigued him.

What a shame it was that her people tried to put a collar on her and leash her to the land.

He could change that.

Oh, and he fully intended to. He'd come to the village, pretending to be a handsome man, and lure her away into the wilderness like the tales always warned.

It's what she deserved. And most important of all, it's what _he _deserved.

After all, wolves were not made to live alone. Every wolf needs a moon to guide him.


	2. Chapter 2

"I say "wolf," but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all."

—Charles Perrault's version of Little Red Riding Hood

—

There was a day that Jane does not speak of. It started much like many other days in her life, when the trees called to her and she heeded their song to wander among the towering pines.

That particular day was between summer and autumn, when the world was readying itself for slumber.

The evening was cool and clear as she walked through the forest, peering up through the branches, waiting for the stars to open their eyelids.

That was why she didn't see it.

Her toes collided with the hole first until her entire foot was engulfed in its invisible maw. Jane was thrown to the ground, the air pushed from her lungs.

She lay there for a moment, dazed and breathless. Birds called to each other. Looking behind her, she saw that her foot was stuck in a hole at the base of a tree, her ankle trapped among the tangled roots.

She tried rotating it and sliding her foot out, but still it didn't move. The teeth of the hole were locked closed. She flattened her foot and tried scooting backwards, but only managed in smearing the back of her dress with mud and fallen leaves.

Then the birds fell quiet. The leaves whispered against each other, and a silent, dark canid form slid through the trees. Its shoulders rocked back and forth with muscled power, and it fixed her with a hungry gaze.

Jane's heart hammered, and her fingers curled into the dirt. There was nothing to defend herself against the beast, but she could momentarily blind it with dust if worse came to worse.

But it came no closer. It stopped on the rise of ground above her, and just watched.

Jane swallowed, trying to calm her heart, swiping sweat away from her brow. She probably reeked of fear. But she refused to drop her eyes from the wolf's gaze. It was foolish, but she would not allow it to take her by her throat unawares.

The seconds crawled by, and the wolf came no closer, all they did was watch each other. Jane glanced down at her ankle, feeling that particular problem weigh on her more heavily than the animal staring at her.

She jerked her foot, twisting it back and forth. Jane glanced back up at her bestial companion. It-no, he-titled his head, and his eyes flicked to her trapped foot. His eyes were clever, and brightness shone from them.

She tensed her muscles again and pushed her hands into the ground. With all her might, she propelled herself back from the hole and was thrown backwards by the force of her push. Now laying on her side, she raised her head.

The wolf had taken a step closer, and his jaws were open. Fear rose up inside her again.

But no.

The wolf wasn't making to attack.

He was grinning. At what? At her escape?

He closed his mouth and started to walk away. He gave her one last glance, his too-bright eyes piercing her, taking her in. It was the look of the one who was starving, a hunger that cannot be satisfied by mere meat. And he left, just as he had come.

When Jane returned home, she received a tongue-lashing for stepping in a hole and dirtying her dress, but she said nothing of the wolf. It seemed something too private and strange to share.

Besides, her mother was likely not to believe her.

—

When the man first talked to her and he drank her in with greedy green eyes, she was reminded of her wolf. But she pushed the thought away, thinking it foolish.

She was wrong to ignore her instincts. The basest part of humanity recognizes the animal in all things, especially beings that dress themselves up in the guise of handsome men.


End file.
